Gallstones in pregnancy

Ive just been released from hospital after my second attack of cholecystitis - im 29 weeks tomorrow. I have been told i'll need my gall bladder out four weeks after giving birth (which also happens to then be 5 weeks before our wedding!) Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you cope with the surgery and balancing a newborn? Or have you got any tips to reduce the risk of another flare up in the mean time?
Xxx

I was in and out of hospital with gall bladder attacks from about the same point in my pregnancy as you are now. It's not much fun at all. Though I must admit morphine drips were very much appreciated given the amount of pain I was in. Seriously, acute cholecystitis was more painful for me than child birth.

You need to make sure you're eating really really really bland foods - unfortunately though this still won't always keep an attack at bay.

I found that if I felt an attack coming on and caught it early enough then I could prevent it by laying on my right side. Reason being that the pain is from a stone trying to leave the gallbladder right? So because the gallbladder hangs off the right side of the oesophageal tract, if you lay on your right side, the stone will usually fall back into the gallbladder - trust me if you can get this right, you will save yourself a LOT of trips to emergency

A cholecystectomy is keyhole surgery so the recovery time is pretty short. I was advised not to lift bub for a week and just made sure FOB was around and if he wasn't there then my gf would come and sit with me.

What they don't tell you though is that a cholecystectomy does not guarantee you'll never have an attack again, just severely reduces the chances.

Thanks guys yeh its only my second attack so i cant see any correlation between what i ate each time. And id eaten nothing but healthy food on wednesday!! Good tip about lying on my right hand side, though when youre in a full blown attack its pretty much impossible to lie still! I hope the pain was worse than childbirth otherwise im rethinking my epidural plan!!

Attacks aren't just caused by food.. Once stones are present (can be caused by oestrogen etc) all they need is a bump in the wrong direction to fall into the bile duct (which is when they hurt).

I found a good vomit would help dislodge them, but gettingto that point felt like I was dying of heart attack!

Recovery physically is good...much better than when I had my appendix out..but your bowel/GI tract will take a while to adjust. I recommend having a loo available straight after brekky and avoiding thing like bacon and eggs or anything equally fat/cream based as it will go straight through. I was caught out a Few times until I learnt to manage it better!

Also, I've noticed alcohol can make me very sick the next morning, as does vomiting. Both stimulate the production of bile, but this isn't concentrated enough to do it's job (that's what gall bladder is for!) so it tends to go through you and burn a bit. And you will notice you can taste it in your saliva and smell it in your sweat.

The two things you need to watch between now and your 'ectomy is an infection caused by the stones irritating your bile duct..watch for symptoms of tummy bugs, fevers or pus in vomits or toilet visits.

The second is your bilirubin count...this indicates jaundice/liver malfunction and can start to digest the little fibers in your kidneys..and I expect this wouldn't be good for bubba either! If your wee resembles a dark black tea, and your experiencing pain for more than an hour, I would be seeing GP or A and E.

Sorry for huge response...took docs 18 months to correctly diagnose me and by the end of that time I was too ill with liver issues to operate on for 5 days.

And I was only 23, and only weighed 52 kgs so had none of the risk factors.

A close friend had the same problem ... She was in and out of hospital from the start of her pregnancy ... At 4 weeks they decided they it was coming out soon as she hit 14 weeks when bub was bigger .... She had the surgery and it went well... Unfortunately she had a internal bleed after and was re admitted ... But bub us now 4 months old and healthy!! She also has a 2 yr old she was looking after and managed just fine :-)
good luck !!

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